Obama in the Eye of the Storm
Posted in Main Blog (All Posts) on February 17th, 2009 5:38 am by HL
Obama in the Eye of the Storm
CHICAGO — Barack Obama senses that he’s in the middle of a hurricane whose gale-force winds could blow history his way. He doesn’t mind acknowledging that he is learning as he goes along, and he is not bitter about how little help he is getting from Republicans. But he will never again let bipartisanship become the defining test of his success. And, yes, he is aware that the passage of his stimulus package, though a big deal three weeks into a presidency, is only a prelude to the “really tough” part. The next step, “getting credit flowing again” and averting “potential catastrophe in the banking system,” may make the stimulus fight look like a friendly warm-up game.
A Lost Decade Ahead?
“If you delay acting on an economy of this severity, (it potentially) becomes much more difficult for us to get out of. We saw this happen in Japan in the 1990s, where they … suffered what was called the ‘lost decade.'” — President Barack Obama, Feb. 9 “The Japanese … had eight separate stimulus packages. … It was unprecedented. And it didn’t work.” — Conservative TV talk show host Sean Hannity, Jan. 23 We argue by analogy. The president says that Japan’s history demonstrates the need for his “stimulus package.” To the contrary, claim Hannity and other conservatives, Japan shows that stimulus plans don’t work. Up to a point, they’re both right. But the possible parallels between Japan’s experience and our own are much broader and pose the question of whether we, too, might face a “lost decade.”